


Only dance partners?

by GwenChan



Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: Alternative Universe - Human, Dancing, Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, Falling In Love, Genderbend, Tango, spamano - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-04
Updated: 2016-07-04
Packaged: 2018-07-20 01:51:00
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,385
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7386031
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GwenChan/pseuds/GwenChan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Chiara Vargas finds herself in a tango milonga she has all the intentions to not dance with anyone. She, however, hasn't taken into account a Spaniard with hands as warm as sun who may be able to win her reluctance.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Only dance partners?

**Author's Note:**

  * A translation of [Solo compagni di ballo?](https://archiveofourown.org/works/6537529) by [GwenChan](https://archiveofourown.org/users/GwenChan/pseuds/GwenChan). 



**Only dance partners?**

 

He’s watching her. She knows, she can feel it, even if she has bowed the very moment she noticed that the man’s eyes were looking right her.

She observes her hands folded in her lap, letting the arms swinging down the thighs wrapped by the skirt elastic fabric, pretending she’s adjusting the shoe strap. She pretends that the stained parquet is the most interesting thing in the world. She can’t reciprocate the sight. She doesn’t want to. Doing so would mean to accept the invitation to dance. These are the rules, even a newbie like her knows it. She sights. It’s her sister’s entire fault. She said it would’ve been fun. For her, maybe.

She moves a brown tuft, escaped from her ponytail, from her cheek. She thinks she can at least indulge in peering up. The man – Carriedo, as she heard a couple of people calling him – has tanned skin, darker than her, who isn’t pale either, and green eyes. Those eyes immediately notice her. In a moment, he’s in front of her. He smiles. It’s a stupid smile. He offers her a hand, with palm up. The gesture is clear, insistent.

Chiara puffs in sign of denial, but she knows well she can’t refuse forever. It would be rude. Not that she cares.

“Leave me alone!” she hisses, crossing her naked arms on her chest. “I didn’t even want to come here!” she adds, to clarify that she won’t dance. She won’t move from that chair until Alice comes to take her.

“You looked at me.”

“Is it forbidden, now?”

Carriedo lightly laughs, and his accent is so annoying and at the same time erotic. Oh, Chiara would never admit it, not ever under torture. Just like she would never admit that the person dumped in front of her isn’t so bad, from a pure esthetical point of view.

“Fuck the rules!” she replies, but he’s already grabbed her writs, forcing her to stand up. Chiara curses, trips, falls on him.

“Be careful, you bastard!”

She would hit him, to express how much angry she is, but he’s already held her. Tight. Too tight. This goes beyond the simple invasion of personal space, that yet the tango requires.

Chiara struggles to move, but at least she concedes herself the pleasure of stomping with her heel on his foot, right on the fingers.

A Spanish curse and the octopus-like hug loosen. It’s enough to allow her to escape, right toward the door, strutting. She would go home by foot. She’s forgotten her bag and the expensive tango shoes will ruin on the pavement, but it doesn’t matter.

“Is this yours?”

A persecution, that is it. Carriedo waves the _pochette_ right in front of her nose.

“Thanks” she mutters, grabbing it and leaving. The man keeps calling her. Chiara doesn’t turn.

 

 

Tango is a matter of faith and understanding. Chiara lacks both. She doesn’t want to trust herself to the partner. Life has taught her to trust no one.

“Damn it,” she growls, when she steps on her dress rim for the nth-time, like she has two left feet. She would tumble on the ground if Carriedo weren’t there to catch her. He has insisted so much that the Italian woman was forced to accept a dance, in the end. It was the first of a long series.

It’s annoying. It’s embarrassing. She goes forward when she should go back; she turns right instead of left. Surely a dried cod pending from a beam to swing in the winter wind is more gracious than her. Even more, having spectators bothers her. The thought of having a group of unknown people watching how much ridiculous she is prevents her from moving in a relaxing way, as the Spaniard is never tired to tell her, and makes her ears go red with frustration.

Antonio noticed it with time. That’s why he learnt to wait until the _milonga_ is almost empty to brings her on the dance floor. He whispers she could come to his home. He could teach her in the tranquillity of his living room, it would be more comfortable and reserved. Chiara doesn’t answers. She only hides her face against Carriedo’s shoulder.

“Bullshit.”

Sometimes, when they are the only left in the room, dancing is almost – almost – pleasant. The low music enters her, flows in her body, becomes a part of her, until she doesn’t hear it with her ears anymore. Her fingers sink in Antonio’s back, they grab the sweaty shirt. The man has big, calloused, warm hands. It’s like he stole a ray of Andalusia sun to carry it everywhere with him. He traces her backbone line with his knuckles, stopping just before her buttocks. Chiara would lame him if he dares to go lower.

“You’re improving!”

“Shut up!”

It’s true. She’s always clumsy, with no hope. The truth is that without Antonio she would stop going to the _milonga_ , twice a week, from some time. Instead it has been months. Often they don’t even dance. They just stand there, holding, shifting their weight, ignoring the rule that forbids fixed partners.

Goodbyes are always hard. Crossing the threshold that gives on the street means abandoning a world where everything is perfectly sorted and finding themselves in chaos. The reality rubs in their face how much they’re still strangers. Antonio invited her to drink a glass a couple of time. They exchanged little gifts as courtesy at Christmas, nothing more. Those are the goodbyes that leave a bitter taste in her mouth.

 

Only that this time, Antonio doesn’t let her go. She hugs her, with no reason. It’s June, he doesn't even have the excuse of wanting to keep her warm, like in some sappy movies Chiara loathes and Alice forces her to watch with a bowl of biscuits to eat, not caring if they gain weight.

Her forehead is against the man’s chest. She sniffs his smell, she’s used to it. She feels his hair tickling her neck when he bends until his lips are posed on her ear.

“Te quiero.”

“Bullshit,” she replies. She does it out of habit. Actually Chiara has realized what she’s just heard. Not yet. She needs a moment for her brain to catch the words already escaping and to elaborate them. Te quiero. I want you. I love you. Some unknown force must have transported her in a B-movie. There are no other explanations left. She gets away harshly.

“It isn’t possible.”

“What?”

“This. You can’t love me. It doesn’t make sense.”  
It doesn’t make any sense. They aren’t even friends. Just dance partners.

Chiara looks down at the asphalt. “You don’t know me!”

He holds her face, with firmness. His lips make a grimace when he feels the woman’s familiar weight on his toe. Still he endures.

“I know your favourite food is _pasta alla norma_. I know you’re in a bad mood when it’s foggy. That you puff your cheeks when you’re angry. That you rubs your nape when you lie. That you work as saleswoman in a clothes shop and you hates serving some Russian clients with no sense of fashion. That you got fired two times already because you’re too direct, but you can’t afford to lose another job. I kno-“  
“Stop it!”  
The situation is almost ridiculous. Antonio remembers everything. Pieces of sentences stuttered in half-voice when they dance; information extorted to her shyness; muttering only for herself. Antonio gathered them all, like precious pieces of a jigsaw.

“I don’t know nothing about you,” she points out. She know nothing, besides the fact Carriedo is manager in the marketing division is a farming firm specializing in tomato sauce and is in Italy to adjust the terms of a partnership with a local enterprise. Otherwise, the man is a mystery.

Chiara stops the first taxi that miraculously crosses the road; she throws herself to open the car door not even waiting for the car to stop. She wants to go away, before falling once again in the sticky trap of love. Before the itching in her eyes becomes tears.

 

***

 

She’s stopped going dancing. She doesn’t want to see Antonio again. She can’t see him again. As long as she doesn’t come near the _milonga_ , he can’t reach her. She knows. Carriedo has neither her home address nor her mobile number. And she doesn’t have a fixed phone.

It’s strange to spend Wednesday and Friday evenings lying on the couch, with a laptop balancing on her belly, lazily watching anorexic models, instead of being held by a man’s arms.

Finding such man glued to the intercom is more than surprising. Two questions arise. Why is he here? Why did he take him so long?

“How could you find me?” Chiara asks, after having guided him in the kitchen. His eyes have bags, she notices.

“Your sister.”

“As expected from that snoop.”

“She was worried about you. Why did you stop coming to dance?”  
Chiara hisses. She grabs a kitchen knife and starts cutting carrots for dinner with too much violence. “I didn’t want anymore. Nothing of your business.”

Toc, toc, toc.

The blade hits the woods. “I would’ve found you.”

“Does you hate me that much?”

Now he’s behind her, firmly forcing her to pose the knife, which clinks and slides in the sink. His breath caresses her hair. “It doesn’t matter. Let me go. I’m not you tango partner anymore. I should’ve never become so!”  
It happens in a rush: her elbow is stick in his side to push him away, his hands are on her shoulders, in her hair and, finally, the distance between their mouth is no more.

“You came to the _milonga_ because it was the only place where you could afford to be yourself without fucking up all.”

Tango is intertwined with faith an abandon, like love.

“You’re saying just a bunch of bullshit,” but her fingers are already grasping Antonio’s nape, dragging him to her height and her mouth rushes to search his.

“The house?”

“Empty. For hours still.”

“Your room?”

“Down the aisle,” she mutters, pressed against he man’s body. They hardly separate while the walk the trail between kitchen and bedroom.

When their lips don’t search each other, they pounce on the neck, under the ears. Chiara fiddles with Carriedo’s shirt buttons without compliments and with no grace. Her fingers soon grab his belt buckle. He’ll find easier to undress her. The girl is dressed to stay home: shorts and tank top. Summer is on its last legs, but the heat’s still reluctant to pull up the stakes.

Antonio almost moans in pleasure when he notices that the girl doesn’t wear any bra. It’s great not to have to fight with the clasps of that damn clothing. Quickly his hands slip under the top fresh cotton, caressing her smooth skin, while Chiara let herself fall on her back on the bed still undone.

“You’re a little mess,” Antonio pokes her, balancing on knees and forearms to not press her with his weight.

“There’re better ways to use that mouth,” Chiara replies, stretching her arms behind her head to help her lover undress her. He in turn takes off the shirt with a fluid shoulder movement. Oh, the sight isn’t so bad.

Chiara finds herself comparing Carriedo with the sun, with fire. He burns with rough vehemence, while he touches her with excitement, gliding from the light prominence of the ribs to the more prominent bulge of her hips. Still there’s a nut of sweetness in him, something that warms the chest other the normal warmth due to arousal.

One of the man’s legs sneaks between her thighs. The scratchy jean fabric brushing against her intimacy, covered by just a thin layer of cloth, makes her arch her back. The feeling is almost annoying when shorts and panties are pulled down to her ankles and on the floor. Chiara moans, her mouth pressed against Carriedo’s collarbone.

A hand of hers is now grabbing his trousers. The other is holding his nape. She buckles against him, wishing for a deeper contact.

When Carriedo pushes himself forward to lick her breast, a knee brushes against her clitoris. Chiara covers her face with a forearm; sweat beading her reddening forehead.

“Take off this damn trousers,” she orders. She bites her lips to maintain a minimum of decency. The man peels away that much to obey, a time the girl still finds too long. With need she attires him, she quivers under his touch, on her back, between her thighs. A hand runs to grasp her lover tight ass, finally naked. The other hand’s fingers glide to prickle the tip of his erection. The Italian woman indulges in playing, now caressing the length, now almost scratching it. She finds funny to torment him. Carriedo twitches; he pinches a piece of the inner thigh delicate skin. He growls Spanish words Chiara prefers not to inquire about. She doesn’t have the lucidity, anyway. Not now that the man is kissing her belly, touching her legs with gestures so slow that she’s going crazy. When Antonio enters in her, Chiara almost curses. She’ll never get used to the intrusion. A portion of her brain runs thinking about the pill she’ll have to take the day after. Nevertheless the Spaniard soon is back searching her mouth, sinking fingers in her messy hair, moving on her, inside her.

It’s enough to switch off her hear for a few, blessed minutes.

It’s like dancing, after all. It’s just a matter on understanding and anticipating the partner’s actions, acting accordingly. Carriedo swings and Chiara follows him, until they both reach orgasm.

Antonio smiles, widening his arms like an invitation. The Italian makes a face, still she snuggles up against the man chest.

“Did you like it’”  
“Bullshit.”  


***  
Chiara hardly represses the instinct of shoving the mic down the reporter’s throat, after he’s almost banged it her nose. Next to her, Antonio watches the trophy like a child who has just found a giant candy.

“So, why are you so close-knit?” the journalist asks. The woman smirks, slapping her man’s hand when he tries to hold her. She, however, gives him a quick kiss on the cheek.

“It’s simple. I hate him with all my might.”


End file.
